On the recordJanuary 1, 1903
Through fugitive slaves and irrepressible discussion this desire for freedom seized the black millions still in bondage, and became their one ideal of life.
Said by
W.E.B. Du Bois
Source
gutenberg.orgW.E.B. Du Bois: “Through fugitive slaves and irrepressible discussion this desire for freedom seized the black millions still in bondage…”
Editor's note · Context
In "The Souls of Black Folk," Du Bois explains how the desire for freedom became the central ideal for enslaved Black people.
Share
More from W.E.B. Du Bois
Jan 1, 1903
In song and exhortation swelled one refrain—Liberty; in his tears and curses the God he implored had Freedom in his right hand.
Jan 1, 1903
After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness…
Jan 1, 1903
This, then, is the end of his striving: to be a co-worker in the kingdom of culture, to escape both death and isolation, to husband and use his best powers and his latent genius.
Jan 1, 1903
It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.